Yesterday at Quizno's I had a very strange experience. It started as I was ordering my sandwich, a turkey and swiss sub on focaccia bread, it was quite tasty. Anyway, as I was standing there waiting for my sub, a man in black pants, a light blue shirt carrying a briefcase, who from this point shall be known as 'social engineer', asked for the manager. The manager walked over, this man showed him his card, immediately they started chatting about various things, the manager looked confused, but later warmed up and the tune of their conversation changed. It sounded security related in nature; the location of the in-store safe, security cameras, which parts of the store were under surveillance, which ones recorded, which didn't, what parts of the store were not secure, how many customers were on camera from this camera, that camera and etc. My first impression was, "hmm interesting." My immediate second impression was, "boy there are a lot of people listening to this." I looked at Mr. Social Engineer and he was avidly taking notes in a leather bound notebook that emerged from his briefcase, he was also looking wherever the manager pointed, in general extremely interested and tenacious. How difficult would it be to find a store manager, sell yourself as a security professional, and learn this type of information? Apparently not very difficult.

 

My sandwich was ready by this point, "1197" was the number called. I stood there waiting. "1197 anyone?" I stood there patiently, the guy looks right at me.. "1197?" I smile and say, "1179?" He looks confused, picks up the receipt, gets a big grin on his face and hands me my tray.

 

I walk over to the drink dispenser, Dr. Pepper or Vanilla Coke? hmmm.. Dr. Pepper it is. Now some may ask, dude you're in NYC why not eat somewhere really nice. First off, I live in New York and food is crazy expensive here. Hell everything is so expensive, I’m lucky I'm eating at all. Quizno's is technically fast-food, but it's damn good fast food, and this particular Quizno's has a Wi-Fi hotspot, a huge bonus in my book.

 

I sit down at a table overlooking some dude on an iBook surfing the web reading a Netscape News page. I look past him out the window and see someone dressed up as a giant Quizno's drink cup waving at people and acting all jolly.

 

Then I see Social Engineer outside with the manager talking about 'somethingreallyimportant'. They walk inside and he asks where the restroom is. The manager points to an unmarked black door that's right next to the entrance. Social Engineer enters the black door. I look forward and focus on my sandwich (it is still really good). I then look up and see the guy on the iBook looking at a porn site... I couldn't believe my eyes, but I accepted it and continued eating my lunch.

 

I then hear someone knocking on a door. It was an older ,probably 70s-80s, Asian man knocking on the black bathroom door. A muffled, "Someone is in here!" emanates from the door, but the Asian man keeps knocking. It wasn't a slow subdued 'I'm out here' knock either. It was a constant banging like he was having an emergency. His ear was pressed against the door, tap tap tap, tap tap tap, bang bang, tap tap tap. I'm thinking.. either this guy has some issues, or he really has to go! This goes on for about a minute and I'm seriously getting disturbed at this point. Porn over the Wi-Fi in front of me, and an elderly Asian man who apparently is bursting at the seams.

 

I just relax, remind myself this is my lunch, I can spend it how I want, and things are just fine. The social engineer comes out of the can, and asks the asian man what heck his problem is?

 

"You take too long." Asian man says.

 

"Too long? I was in there for 2 maybe 3 minutes." Social engineer says.

 

"Get out of way, my turn." as he pushes the social engineer out aside and closes the door.

 

I take another sip of Dr. Pepper, throw away my trash, neatly place the tray above the receptacle. I take another sip of Dr. Pepper, knock on the bathroom door, the social engineer looks up at me from his leather bound notebook and chuckles. I walk outside and give the giant Quizno's cup a high-five and walk back to my office.